Glenn, always direct, zeroes in on the
matter at hand: "Well, we're setting our sights
real high for this record. It's interesting, we've
got this house now—talkin' about energy in L.A.
and stuff—Don's got this house that we've been
writing at that's got a very nice panorama view
of Century City all the way out to Santa
Monica, and you can see Catalina on a clear
day, and we sit up there and look out those
windows. Still does it to me when the sun's
goin' down and those lights start to come on; I
can still get filled with wonder."

Don, the painstaking craftsman of the
lyrics, expands on the subject: "We're still
writing about the same things. We're just trying
to have a better look at it, ya know, a more
mature viewpoint. I mean, on this album we
deal with things like single women and how
they feel, and mothers with children and no
men, all kinds of stuff like that. Grown-up
problems. 'Cause we've grown up now. We
thought we never would grow up, y'know, but I
guess it's happening. It's strange because you
tend to think in the back of your mind that rock
'n' roll is for kids, but it's not anymore."
"Yeah," Glenn adds reflectively, "the
audience grows up with you."

We adjourn to the engineer's booth of the
recording studio to listen to the playback of the
previous night's track. This is Bill Szymczyk's
territory—he is a towering figure and he
commands his space with acute authority. On
the walls are pinned up various Eagles'
callages—cut-outs from wrestling magazines,
bizarre Polaroid prints—all with comic
headlines or song titles. One is titled, for a
possible new song, "You're really high aren't
you?"

The tape starts running and the small room
is filled with crescendoing drums which segue
into a soaring, evocative instrumental song. It
is mysterious and there is something disturbing
about it, an undercurrent of violence. When the
track finishes you are left hanging—the song
has put you way, way in another place. "That's
bein' called 'Teenage Jail,' offers Glenn, who
wrote the music and the title. "That's a pretty
visual instrumental track. Just with the title
alone—when I listen to it all the images are
there. I can see it all, y' know."

"Teenage Jail" is Glenn's metaphor for high
school, and the constriction that all kids feel.
Elaborating, Glenn explains: "Another song
that we have been tentatively calling, 'You're
really high aren't you?', is the antithesis of the
song 'Teenage Jail.' it's just the opposite. It's
gonna be a very pounding, relentless kind of
thing with very fast guitar work in it, and we're
hoping somehow to mix those two together in
some kind of musical speedball, y' know, that
just might go . . ." He mouths a noise which is a
cross between a Ferrari revving up and the
Concord making its sonic boom. "See we got
those drums on the beginning, probably be
faded in from another track or something."

Don Henley chips in, "We feel a definite
need to try to bring back real rock 'n' roll
because, y' know, this disco stuff and all this
computer clone-rock. . . ! In that sense I agree
with the punk sentiment, even though I don't
agree with their method, in the way that they
play sometimes. But, rock 'n' roll does need a
revival for damn sure! It's getting too slick and
too weird and everything—it's all androgynous, heartless, gutless crap."
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